Skip to main content

Very Veggie Pesach 2019: Kiwi, Quinoa and Ricotta





I had been looking for a recipe using kiwi fruit that would be good for Passover, but most of the recipes I found were more in the nature of salads and had little or no protein. The recipe this is based on originally used apples, but I really wanted to use kiwi and it was DELICIOUS!!! If you don't like kiwi or don't have access to it, you can always substitute chopped apples. For those who don't know: it's pronounced KEE-wee and KEEN-wah.

 
The really wonderful thing about this recipe is that it's quick, easy, and all the parts are assembled separately. If you don't finish it all the first day, you can store the ricotta and other parts separately for overnight refrigeration. Then you can reheat the other parts without destroying the ricotta and put the ricotta back on afterwards. Do you have a vegan coming for dinner? Skip the ricotta. Is someone allergic to nuts? Skip the nuts. And because it's assembled separately, each person can skip the parts they don't want and keep the rest. Very convenient!

This recipe is gluten free and non-gebrochts. It can be made vegan by skipping the ricotta and will still have plenty of protein and flavor!

Let's get started!

Ingredients
  • 4 kiwi fruits, peeled (if you like), sliced and the slices quartered (make sure you don't use kiwis that are too soft if you want to peel!)
  • 2 tablespoons butter or Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • 1 tablespoon honey
  • 1 cup quinoa
  • 1/4 cup chopped walnuts or other available nuts

Kashrut Notes
  • Fresh fruits are always kosher for Passover! This covers the kiwi.
  • Butter requires Passover certification. Breakstone's salted and unsalted butter are commonly available in stores marked Kosher for Passover at this time of year. If you want to substitute vegetable oil to make this vegan, Extra Virgin Olive Oil is commonly available certified for Passover all year round, and Star-K's Passover Guide says that many brands they certify do
    not require a P, most notably the widely available Pompeian. Be aware that many other vegetable oils are made from kitniyot vegetables and are not suitable for Passover.
  • Honey requires Passover certification because some honey is mixed with
    corn syrup (kitniyot, not for Passover). Some widely-available honeys have OU-P supervision, such as Sue Bee, Wegmans and Kirkland (the Costco brand). Make sure the
    honey has a P after the OU logo!
  • Cottage cheese requires kosher for Passover certification. have seen Breakstone's cottage cheese in stores with kosher for Passover certification, though it doesn't seem to be in all
    stores. Look for the words "Kosher for Passover" on the cellophane around the lid.
  • Ground spices require Passover certification because of anti-caking agents and the risk of cross-contamination or dilution with not-for-Passover ingredients. Cinnamon can be hard to find because it is such a popular spice it sells out quickly. If you can't find it, you can skip the cinnamon.
  • Most major kosher certification organizations now accept quinoa as permitted for Passover (they didn't always). But now they are requiring Passover certification for it! They used to allow Ancient Grains with the standard Star-K certification. This can make KFP quinoa hard to find so you may want to talk to your rabbi about it.
  • Nuts require Passover certification. They are normally packaged with preservatives suspended in corn oil, a kitniyot oil. If you can't find them locally, online vendor Oh! Nuts has a nice selection. I often have a hard time finding certified chopped nuts so I bought myself a little chopper at Bed, Bath and Beyond and buy whole nuts.

Preparation
  • Cook the quinoa according to package directions
  • While the quinoa is cooking, melt the butter and saute the kiwi in it until it softens up nicely, about 5-10 minutes. Stir in the honey toward the end of the saute.
That's it! You're done! Now all you have to do is assemble the pieces: a scoop of quinoa into a bowl, a scoop of ricotta on top of that, a scoop of kiwi on top of that, and sprinkle some chopped nuts on top! Repeat for each person.

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Did Moses know he was a Hebrew?

It seems to be a common notion, perpetuated by movies like Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments  and Disney's Prince of Egypt , that Moses grew up as a high-level member of Pharaoh's household with no idea that he was a Hebrew. But does that notion fit in with what it says in the Bible, or what Jewish tradition teaches about Moses? This week's Torah portion is Shemot, the beginning of the book of Exodus, so it's a good time to examine this question. We actually know very little about Moses' childhood from the Bible. Pharaoh had ordered all male children to be thrown into the Nile River at birth (Ex. 1:22). While that order was in effect, a boy was born to a man of the tribe of Levi and his wife, also of that tribe (Ex. 2:1-2). The parents are later identified (Num. 26:59) as Amram an Yocheved (that "ch" is pronounced like a throat-clearing noise). Yocheved could not bear to throw her beautiful new son to his death, so she hid him away for three mont
Read more

Being Jewish at Christmas

Last March, I heard a DJ talking about March Madness, the annual insanity surrounding a college basketball tournament. She wasn't interested in it, but everyone in her office was obsessed with it. They had an office pool, a constant barrage of emails and parties to watch every game on TV. The DJ didn't want to be a part of it, but her co-workers pressured her to get involved. They tried to get her to participate in the pool, but she insisted that she didn't even know the names of the teams. Her co-workers assured her that it didn't matter who she bet on, it would be fun to play. They wouldn't take no for an answer. She wasn't trying to spoil their fun, but she wanted to be left alone. As I heard her talk about her frustration, I thought, "Now you know how it feels to be Jewish at Christmas." Think of something that you're not interested in but that everybody else seems to be talking about. Maybe it's a sporting event: March Madness, the Superbo
15 comments
Read more

Afterthoughts about the Blessing of the Sun

I know it's a bit after the fact, and it won't really be relevant again for another 28 years, but this recently came up in a newsletter I received, and I simply had to say something about it. The Blessing of the Sun (Birkat Hachamah) is a blessing recited once every 28 years, commemorating the work of Creation, and specifically the creation of the sun. It was observed this year, 5769, on the morning of April 8, 2009. Now, many have noticed that the year number 5769 is not evenly divisible by 28. Dividing 5769 by 28 leaves a remainder of 1. One explanation that has been offered for the discrepancy, which appears to be a traditional explanation, says: The Sages have already explained to us that during the year of the Flood, the natural order of the world was suspended. That may be so, but it has absolutely nothing to do with why the division leaves a remainder of one. A better explanation is simple mathematics, and should be familiar to anyone who remembers the whole
3 comments
Read more